I'd take one step back and ask the question: Why would anyone one a graphical system need to run a terminal emulator in order to get notified about new mail? What if someone uses all kinds of other applications (web browser, document editor, photo viewer, music player...), just not a terminal, why wouldn't they be notified? The right approach is not to fix whatever happens inside the terminal emulator, the right approach is to have a graphical indicator on the desktop.
-- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop Packages, which is subscribed to gnome-terminal in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1872053 Title: Local mail is never checked Status in gnome-terminal package in Ubuntu: New Bug description: Description: Ubuntu 19.10 Release: 19.10 gnome-terminal: Installed: 3.34.2-1ubuntu1 Candidate: 3.34.2-1ubuntu1 Context : In a typical daily use scenario, a Ubuntu user is not expected to use a console login with "Ctrl-Alt Fx". Instead it is expected to use gnome-terminal for command-line interaction. That being said : What I expect to happen when I launch gnome-terminal : I expect the bash shell started by gnome-terminal to check local mail (in /var/mail/$USER ) and reports accordingly "You have new mail" if there is new mail. What happens instead : gnome-terminal invokes bash with $MAIL variable not set. So mail is not checked, and the user is never informed about new local mail. Workaround : Put export MAIL=/var/mail/$USER in ~/.bashrc To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-terminal/+bug/1872053/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages Post to : desktop-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp